Research Article

The thermal behavior of a novel wall radiator panel coupled with horizontal ground source heat pump heating system: improve indoor environment to reduce the airborne transmission of infectious diseases

¹ Laboratory of New and Renewable Energies in Arid and Saharan Areas–LENREZA, University of Kasdi Merbah-Ouargla Po Box 511, Ouargla 30000, Algeria
² Laboratory of Thermal Processes, Research and Technology Center of Energy, Hammam Lif, B.P. 95, Tunis 2050, Tunisia (CRTEn)
³ Department of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Science and Technology, University Ziane Achour of Djelfa, Djelfa 17000, Algeria

^* e-mail: sabrinskemr@gmail.com

Received: 16 November 2020
Accepted: 24 November 2020

Abstract

Motivated by the rapid spread of the novel pandemic disease (COVID-19) that swept the most countries in the world, a new radiation heating system consists of wall radiator panel system connected to a reversible geothermal heat pump (GHP) coupled with horizontal ground heat exchanger (HGHX) was proposed as fast and permanent solution to the risks of the dispersion of airborne infectious diseases in air-conditioned enclosed spaces. An experimental system was installed and tested in the laboratory of thermal process of Research and Technology Center of Energy (CRTEn), Tunisia, in order to achieve the two main goals of this work: developing a new radiation heating system with quick and inexpensive implementation while ensuring high efficiency and environment-friendly performance for the entire system. The results obtained show that it is feasible to use the novel RPHs as heat rejecter of the horizontal ground source heat pump system (HGSHPs) for heating buildings with limited surface land areas epically those located in the Mediterranean regions such as Tunisia, the average performance coefficients of the geothermal heat pump COP_hp and the overall system COP_sys are found to be 6.3 and 3, respectively. The thermal comfort analysis indicates that there is only a small vertical temperature fluctuation in the test room that would not produce any negative effect on thermal comfort.